We should be talking about the Voice

It’s been a few months and the only answer that seems to have any currency is that Australians are “racist” but is that true? As long as Labor refuse to bring up the failed referendum we’ll never know. It’s like some sort of curse, something that you never wake up from like one of those movies where the lead characters is doomed to repeat exactly the same steps from waking in the morning until he’s killed again and again. With another Australia Day coming up it’s probably a good idea for Albanese to bit the bullet, publicly confess to having botched the poll, and start a discussion about ways forward that will actually help to improve the situation.

Knowing Albo however – he’s a seasoned political player – this won’t happen. Meanwhile the gap is as large as ever and while other people grow rich and prosperous Aboriginal people continue to experience poverty, high rates of incarceration, and low academic achievements for youth. Aren’t these things more important than the fortunes of a political party?

It seems not.

Politicians are addicted to power, it is the fuel that keeps the engine of government running, not anything like human rights, individual liberty, or equality of access to social benefits. Power is the goal of every politician who enters Parliament to ostensibly “serve” the people. What they want and what they get are people serving their interests. If you manage to get to the pinnacle of the structure, for example as prime minister, you will be particularly well served.

Once you have that access it’s difficult to give it up. It would require qualities in a person that the job of politician is singularly well engineered to weeding out. Nobody with the general interest at heart has a gnats chance in a snowstorm of getting to the top. Albanese for all his apparent sincerity is just another power-mad creature.

What I mean by all this is that to even ask the right questions is something that the business of politics prevents. Since it’s not possible to be a Good Person and a politician at the same time (since to rise to the top you need to be a gaslighting narcissist) then it follows that the interests of the people ostensibly served will instead be ignored in favour of the narcissist’s own interests.

So here we are in 2024 no closer to closing the gap. Instead the gap is used as a cudgel to beat the Opposition around the head because that’s politically expedient. No movement on important metrics, no improvement, nothing. Because it’s against the interests of the very people who have been elected to fix the problem. As long as there’s a problem it will be exploited in order to cause pain to the people on the other side of the Chamber.

No Voice?

The Opposition are racists. It follows like night follows day. This is the only possible takeout. The government will continue to blame the Opposition for not supporting the Voice and there will never be any reconciliation. Reconciliation is not feasible where, in a Westminster system, opposition is the modus operandi of all players.

Julian Leeser leaves the front bench

When I was reading back over that post from July I discovered something ironic, because it transpires that Julian Leeser publicly asked for more detail at that time. Now, he’s quit the front bench of the Liberal National coalition out of frustration that his party rejected the Voice to Parliament.

What’s going on?

The Liberal Party’s discomfort with Labor’s policy is exactly the same as Leeser’s back in xthe depths of last year when Labor had just come out with its plan. The plan was for Parliament to fix the details of the VtP once it had been enshrined in the Constitution.

Leeser is disagreeing with himself.

The Liberal Party has been running interference for a long time, even before they openly sided with the opposers of Labor’s plan they were asking for more details, in fact it was this public position that Leeser in July was conforming to. Leeser has taken a position on the VtP (leaving the front bench) on the basis of a disagreement that he once was voicing himself.

It’s routine that politicians are labelled hypocrites, but Leeser’s stance on an issue that is so central to his identity is very disconcerting. It makes his commitment to the cause seem fragile, partial, and even something driven by ulterior motives. If he believes so strongly in a VtP why then didn’t he come out and say so back in July? Why follow the party line back then and now, in April, take a different tack?

It’s very strange.

I wonder if Leeser thinks that everyone has forgotten what he said last year when he had the opportunity to visibly support a policy he says he now endorses? Well, most people won’t remember. I recall when the media first made the announcement of Leeser’s retirement from his job that no mention was made of the fact of his utterances back in the depths of time. A week is a long time in politics. Six months is positively Triassic.

Listen live to Yingiya

Graeme Cordiner is 20 years part of the Myall Creek Massacre Memorial, and a fundraiser for Yiŋiya (Yingiya) Mark Guyula’s 2016 & 2020 election campaigns. 

This post is to introduce readers to a largely unheard-of man, but a man whose voice needs to be heard, listened to, not just as an MP in the Northern Territory, nor as a Djirrikaymirr (senior leader) of his people, the Yolgnu country of east Arnhem Land – but by all Australians.

Yingiya grew up in traditional culture, his spirit shaped by Madayin (system of law) and Ŋärra’ (governance institution of law). Aged ten he started to undertake a Western education, in turn becoming an aircraft mechanic, commercial pilot, cross-cultural and community facilitator, senior university lecturer, and Independent MP (overturning a sitting deputy leader by 8 votes in 2016).

Yingiya, who was re-elected in 2020, speaks directly and powerfully to us out of a civilisation which for tens of thousands of years maintained peace, justice and harmony. Yolŋu Rom Ŋurruŋu is a message from the Yolgnu for all Australians. It speaks of the foundation of all relationships since the time of creation, challenging our nation – and world – to see where our feet first left the path.

Until now we have not listened. We have refused to meet as humble equals with a civilisation so very much older than our own with other than our cultural assumption that ‘We know best’. And then we blame them for the community fallout from the overwhelming inroads of our Western world. The very people who alone can give us that core sense of ourselves as a nation remain on the margins.

Yingiya is fighting for a partnership and treaty that respects the authority of Aboriginal nations on their own country. In so doing what Yingiya is ultimately fighting for is the soul of Australia.

That we can assist in getting his message out is our privilege. The talk with take place on Tuesday 28 September  at 7.30pm. Register your details here.